


Dawn

by Hope



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Interspecies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-04-23
Updated: 2002-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo needs comfort in the woods of Lothlorien.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> This is a response to a challenge on the frodo_slash yahoogroup - Baranduin actually took it up, and when I read her piece the plot bunnies attacked me, and this was born, another in the wee small hours of the morning... I personally don't think its that great (mine, I mean!), it hasn't been beta-d and I don't really intend it to, it was just a bit of fun and messing around on my part. I don't usually write Lego-fics!  
> Oh, and the challenge was to include these three words: "Dawn", "Firelight" and "Chocolate" in a L/F fic.

_"And the Council gave him companions, so that the errand should not fail..."_  
\- From Chapter 10 ("The Choices of Master Samwise"), Book IV

He could hear him before he could see him, the sound of shuddering breath chafing the fairness of the wood. Silently he moved closer, the small, huddled figure soon coming into view, and he padded closer, settling himself wordlessly beside the hobbit. Frodo didn't look up, didn't move from his position; curled hollowly around a small package on his lap, in his hands. Legolas glanced at it, then examined the hobbit's distraught face.

"Its chocolate." Frodo spoke hoarsely into the silence, answering the unasked question. He sniffed. "Sam brought it. All this way and he never took it out. Never even for himself." He began to rock slightly, eyes squeezing shut as if something were trying to escape out. "At least not til now." He raised a hand and scrubbed it harshly across his face. "Would you like some?"

He finally turned to face the elf beside him, holding the package up with a trembling hand. Legolas shook his head, silent. Frodo withdrew, huddling into himself once more.

"I can understand what they're saying, you know. Well, some of it." The hobbit's body tensed, and he shuddered briefly, his voice dropping to a whisper. "How he came from . . . the West, to fight the shadow. To protect--" his voice cracked.

"Yes," Legolas finally spoke, his voice smooth, mellow. "They do say that." His hand rose, fingers lightly stroking Frodo's tear-streaked face. "But Quenya is different from the common tongue . . . words have many meanings, depending on how they are spoken." Frodo's eyes closed as the elf's palm cupped a cheekbone. "Or sung." Frodo clenched the package in his lap tightly as a second hand rose to mirror the first.

"They sing of protection, but also of the affection Mithrandir held for those in his charge." His hands caressed lightly. "The devotion." He lowered his head slightly, until he was looking directly into Frodo's face, his gaze stroking over the tense brow, closed eyes and trembling lips. He closed his own eyes briefly, allowing . . . allowing the grief he felt to manifest itself in his whisper: "The love."

Frodo's eyes opened, and his breath caught at the sight Legolas' eyes, so close to his own, now dark and stormy with grief and pain, the echoes of his words whispering around them, as if the trees themselves were speaking. He gasped, suddenly needing . . . pushing himself closer.

His lips were so small, so warm and salty against those of the elf's, and the only sound he made as Legolas' mouth shifted over his skin as he sank to the ground was a single sob - a clenched, desperate sound escaping from a place still tender with wounds. The elf silenced him, soothed him with hands and mouth, stroking away worn homespun to cover again with kisses and caresses. Frodo shuddered against that mouth, that touch, pressing up for more, desperate for the release and warmth it promised, and was soon rewarded - trembling as if he were imploding, collapsing in on himself as the elf's hands and lips seemed to be everywhere at once, spanning his skin, his grief, his pain . . .

Legolas withdrew gently, watching the near-transparent eyelids flutter closed on Frodo's tired - yet no longer tense - face. Tenderly he buttoned the hobbit's shirt and weskit, retied the belt and tucked his own cloak around the tiny form. He smiled softly finally, catching sight of the small, sweet package still clutched tightly in Frodo's fist.

"Ringbearer." He whispered softly, ghostly a kiss that might have been a blessing over Frodo's pale forehead. "Your burdens grow heavier."

He rose as he thought the sun might be rising - it was hard to tell in this place. As beautiful as it was in the interminable twilight, he still closed his eyes and remembered the warmth on his face and the smell of the air as the sun rose in Mirkwood, casting a rich amber glow like firelight over the forest already aflame with Autumn leaves.


End file.
